A Knight's Devotion: Gaia

Y'know, now that I'm really looking at this--your character is never shown with long hair, and why are only Lute, Ken, and Shion present? I don't get it.

Still available for iPhone and iPad.

Oh. My. God. Oh my god, I cannot begin to fucking describe how much I fucking loved this line. I loved it so much. It is so goddamn rare for me to really get into something and squeal and kick. I chose Gaia literally because of that one moment in Kenny's line, and I thought I'd hate it as much as I hated Kenny's line, and that I'd just stop playing this one, but holy crap I loved it I loved it I LOVED IT SO MUCH AAAAAH

Okay sorry, fangirl screaming calmed down. Taking some deep breaths here. In. Out. In. Out. Okay I'm good.

So in this version of the plot, your character looks around, worried about who she has to choose. She thinks of Ken because, y'know, she's known him the longest before she finally chooses Gaia, because he's the Knight Commander and thus the least likely to get hurt in his duty.

Gaia is fucking SERIOUS about his duties. He has to protect you. Once you choose him, he becomes even more insane about it -- eating separately so his ears will be alert to any enemies approaching, sitting by himself at all times so he can be more aware, etc. You guys get moving on your journey to the castle and stop in a small town for your first night. There, you run into a stray cat that immediately attaches to Gaia, even though he tries to shoo it off--and at one point when it won't leave him alone, draws his sword, sighs, says something along the lines of, "I'm sorry this dirty creature is harassing you, princess, if you turn away I can ensure it stops." Like, he's fucking serious.

Said Cat.

However, you jump in and stop him from doing this, and are like "No, it's fine!" and so he grumpily lets it be.

Now, here's one of the reasons I really love this line: the heroine isn't some simple little girl who needs saved in this one. She's a lot more active. She does shit. She actively helps with shit. Sure, she's not swinging a sword or anything, but she does step forward and do her part. And in this case, she actively stops Gaia from slaying the cat, and demands he let it stay around.

As Gaia is constantly off on his lonesome, she even stands up when the other knights and she are all eating together, goes over to him, and tells him to eat with the rest of them, because eating alone won't solve anything. Sure, they may not be as prepared in case of a fight--but she'd rather him eat with them than eat by himself.

oh hey, way to be not as out of proportion as everyone else, Gaia! another reason to love you! (so far)

You eventually reach a port town where you're supposed to take a ship to shorten the trip to the capital. However, there's unrest in the empire due to a strange priest who's causing people to doubt the king, and the ship captain sees the knights and calls them out for serving the so-called "cowardly king" and refuses to give any of you a lift.

All the knights begin trying to find another ship to take, and you spend your time talking to the locals, chatting. One of them you talk to is a little boy, who thinks the knights are really cool, mentions that his father is a sea captain, and shows you a boat he'd made. Eventually, the knights return without having found anyone, and you all return miserably to your Inn.

Later that night, however, some sailors burst into the inn searching for the captain's son -- apparently he's gone missing, and there's a terrible storm in the harbor. The knights immediately leap to to help, and your princess demands to go along since she spoke to the boy. It's your princess who finds him--leading people to his boat where the boy is drowning, and Gaia jumps in to the water to save him. He pulls him out and dries him off.

The captain forgives you, and gives you passage on his ship in exchange for saving his boys life. He also gives you a huge meal, which Gaia leaves in the middle of.  You sneak off after him, and find him on deck, feeding the cat which he'd stowed away with him.

Okay, your arm is too long here, Gaia. It like, reaches your mid-calf when you're standing straight up. Forgivable sins.

He's flushed and embarrassed at being caught, but you tell him he has nothing to be embarassed about, and after some talking, he gets down and formally announces that he will defend you for life because you're a kind princess, to allow even someone awful like him to be around. (And there's our first hint as toward the sole subplot to this side of things -- main plot being the rebellion led by the priest, subplot being about how and why Gaia thinks he's a wretch).

Because of having you + the knights on board, the captains food provisions fall a bit faster than he was expecting, so you briefly have to stop in at a small town to get more provisions. The problem here is that it's a pirate town, and to buy anything you need to get the permission of the pirate captain who just so happens to hate knights and want to kill them, because, y'know, lawbreaker, blah blah blah.

His name is Marco. Hurr hurr hurr.

Everyone is about to draw sword and fight when your princess leaps forward and tells everyone to stop. Marco spots you for the first time and is like OMG I WANT HER TO BE MY BRIDE, Gaia is like "Fuck off ho," and so they decide to have a bet. If Marco wins, you become a pirate wife. If Gaia wins, you get your food provisions. This would probably be more sexist if it wasn't for the fact that your character is the one who sets the bet, and is like "lol whatever Gaia will win."

The knights then inform you that Gaia has lost every bet he's ever made. So good luck, have fun sweetheart.

Long story short, the cat saves the day, Gaia wins the bet, Marco is sad but lets you guys have your food and swears one day he'll rape and pillage up the coast until he finds you and steals you away. Gaia tries to attack him again, your princess is like "lol whatevs baiiiii"

You continue your journey and reach the capital city, yay! And you get lost, not yay! And then a fucking weird ass looking guy who's wearing a cross so he's DEFINITELY the priest finds you and leads you back to where you need to be.

what is wrong with your eyes, duder

You eventually find Gaia again, who was frantically worried looking for you. You tell him he's cute. He says he didn't realize your eyes were that bad, and he will get them for you. You then say "No, no, on the INSIDE," and he says something that caused me to giggle hysterically:

aw baby

You finally get to the castle, where you meet your father (who in this variation is just sick with stress and has collapsed and can barely walk), and are coddled by the staff, which doesn't sit right with you. They feed you some high class super rich food and you can't quite stomach it, so you don't eat much and head off to your room. Gaia is waiting for you there, and he asks after your day, admits he heard you didn't eat much, and takes you out of the castle to eat at a place that has food you're used to.

You also at this point hear more about Gaia's life. Apparently his father was knight-commander before him, and was this huge hero, and there was this one point where supposedly the enemy kingdom was about to attack (unnamed this time), and as they lead their army, his father just...disappeared. The people then spread rumors that he was a coward, and he fled, blah blah blah, and so they say that Gaia's a coward too -- thus why Gaia takes his job so seriously.

Man-cleavage weirds me out.

The priest then leads a bunch of peasants and civilians to the castle gates, where he's like WE WILL HAVE A MEETING WITH THE KING or something. You storm forward and say "My father is ill and cannot make it. I'm his daughter, I will listen to your demands and speak with you." Only, y'know, you were raised as a peasant and everyone was told you were dead and no formal announcement's been made yet, so Mr. Priest calls you the False-Princess and since Gaia is with you, calls him the Traitor-Commander, and OH WHAT A PAIR YOU MAKE HUH

You stand up to him, which is when someone shoves forward through the crowd and sides with you. People calm down, sort of weirded out that a royal is willing to listen and the group leaves, barring the old man who shoved forward, who asks for you and Gaia to leave with him.

He leads you to a hovel of a village, where he tells a story of a great knight who--when large amount of scouts for an army that was thinking of attacking the capital came, and was killing villagers--came and fought them off at the cost of his own life. Of course, the knight was Gaia's father. The village built a magnificent grave to honor him, but because the priest doesn't want THAT getting out and thus giving the knights and the king more credibility, he's threatened to raze the town.  They've decided he's gotten too nuts though, and don't give a fuck and want to stand up to him.

nevermind why a fictional kingdom has a cross for shit.

So you guys decide to attack the priest. Gaia comes to your room and says something, and you kiss, and he pauses, and then says something like "Is there any way I can not be a knight tonight, and instead be a man?" and you're like "Yes." And then it suddenly snaps to morning, and look, this game is innocent as fuck, but is there any way you guys DIDN'T spend the whole night fucking? Because I'm saying you guys spent the night fucking. Fuck this bullshit innocence shit. You guys were like ANIMALS.

You wake up to Gaia trying to sneak off on his own, but you stop him and the other knights show up.

So, in a defiant stand, your knights take the fight to McRoy the priest, where his hooded men fight. The knights initially win, when McRoy's men bring in reinforcements, and they're getting battered, you get shot at with arrows, etc, when Marco shows up with his pirates, bringing reinforcements to your side because apparently McRoy's men had gone to pirates for help (because pirates hate knights!) and Marco was like "wtf you want to hurt my beloved princess fuuuuck u."

Afterward, you embrace Gaia, and he's like "oh, uh, princess you shouldn't do that especially not in front of people." So this happens:

So things settle down. YOu handle things your father can't, your father officially makes an announcement, there's a party you're uncomfortable in, and Gaia takes you aside to show you your kingdom, and then kisses you. And this pissed me off 'cause I couldn't get the full picture because it always started before I could get the bottom half, fuck.

SCORES

Oh well. Still cute.

 Each of the below categories is on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 being the worst, 10 being amazing). Thus the max total for a game is 40 points. "Rating" involves me giving a 0-10 rating depending on how NSFW the game is. 0 would mean it's so chaste there's nothing of the sort that would be even...remotely ...touchable. Or whatever. 10 would mean there's some hardcore raunchy sex. "Rating" is not calculated into the overall score.

NSFW Rating: 2 OR 6: Honestly, it's innocent as hell. If you're me, however, that slash cut was totally to block out some raunchy sex. Just saying.
--

Graphics: 10: I noticed, in all honesty, next to nothing that made me cringe this route, and there were some really gorgeous lighting moments. Also, I loved this line. Fuck you. I do what I want.

Gameplay: 10: It's a regular dating Sim, but you get three choices, and your choices will tell what ending you'll get. But fuck you, I do what I want.

Story: 10: I loved this plot. The subplot was simplistic, but better than most dating sims, and the main plot was also simplistic, but better than most dating sims. Your character honestly did things rather than just cry and trip over things. Thank GOD.

Fun: 10. Fuck you, I giggled the whole time.

Overall: 40 / 40 --  A++++++.